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By: Jon Dykstra

Published November 4, 2023

I survived the Nazi invasion, 1944

by Lauren Tarshis
art by Alvaro Sarraseca
2021 / 158 pages

Max and Zena are two Polish Jewish children who, at the time our story begins, have survived for almost five years living under Nazi rule. After Hitler’s German troops conquered Poland, their mistreatment of the Jewish population started immediately. Jews were spat on, their synagogues burnt down, and their businesses destroyed. In the town of Esties, as happened elsewhere, Jews were forced to all move to the same small neighborhood, which was then walled off with barbwire so the Jews could never leave.

With no employment, food was hard to come by, so when Max and Zena come across a raspberry bush just on the other side of the fence, Max decides to risk it. He slips through the wires to grab some berries. They both get caught. To save his sister, Max attacks the Nazi guard, whose gun goes off in the struggle, the bullet hitting the soldier in the knee.

There’s nothing to be done but to run, so off they both go into the woods. During the first long night in the woods, Max does some remembering, and we’re given the siblings’ backstory, how their aunt had warned them not to move into the ghetto, and how their papa had argued it was best just to go along with whatever the Nazis ordered. Their aunt soon disappeared. To America? That’s what Max hopes. When the Nazis then take away Papa and the other men – to where no one is sure – Max and Zena are left to fend for themselves.

Flashback complete, we see the two escapees stumble across a farmer. Will he help or turn them in? Thankfully he is a friendly sort, and after misdirecting the Nazi searchers, the farmer introduces them to the Polish underground. These are Polanders who have never stopped fighting the Nazis, and who have a safe place to hide in the woods. The siblings are delighted to discover that one of the underground fighters is their very own aunt!

CAUTION

When the Nazi soldier is shot in the knee, there is some blood shown, but not in much detail. A little more gory is a two-page recounting of a story that Max’s father used to tell him about how David fought Goliath. We see rock-to-face with some blood spattering, but fortunately, the giant’s beheading is dealt with just outside of frame (David is described and depicted as a boy, maybe of 10 or 12, and there is good reason to think he was an older teen instead).

The scene is echoed some pages later when Max has to resort to hurling a rock to stop two Nazis about to shoot his sister. Again, we see rock-to-face, some small blood smattering, and, maybe more disturbing, a frame of the soldier, seemingly dead, staring up blankly. A gunfight follows, concluding with Max realizing that the Nazi trying to kill them is just a boy only a little older than himself. He realizes this just as his friend Martin fires and kills the young soldier. That’s the most devastating scene in the story, made so not because of the blood spattering, but because we learn that Hitler was turning near-children into murderers.

I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871 – This is a bit of American history famous enough that many a Canadian has heard of it. A city full of quickly built wooden buildings goes through a heat wave, and while their fire department is impressive, one night they just can’t keep up, and a one-mile by four-mile length of the city goes up in flames. This comic has it all, with the brave young lead willing to stand up to bullies and risk it all to save the girl.
I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 – Our guides are a pair of young siblings, including a rascal of a boy who manages to discover every last one of the Titanic‘s rooms, ladders, and passageways. While two-thirds of the passengers and crew lost their lives, everyone we’re introduced to in this story makes it out, which makes it a relatively tame account of this tragedy.
I Survived the Nazi invasion, 1944 – as reviewed above.
I Survived the Battle of D-Day, 1944 – If you were to buy only one of the two 1944 World War II stories, it should be the one above, but D-Day is good too. Paul Corbet is a French kid whose village has been under Nazi rule for years now. His dad was party of the army, but in a German camp now, his best friend Gerard, a Jewish boy, was taken away with his whole family, and his favorite teacher was shot right before his eyes. And now a US paratrooper needs his help. Where can Paul hide him? The author throws in a messenger pigeon that won’t carry messages (but will fight Nazis) for some comic relief, and tamps down on the tension by keeping it largely gore-free (even when people are shot). So, not one for the under 10 set, but over should be able to handle it.
I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967 – This is the story of what led to two fatal grizzly bear attacks occurring on the very same night in the US National Park system. Melody Vega and her little brother are visiting their grandpa at his cabin in Glacier National Park – their mom recently died, and their dad thinks it’s important for them to head out to their traditional summer vacation spot even without her. But when a grizzly follows the girl right back to her cabin and tries to break down the door, Melody and her mom’s best friend start investigating why the bears in the park are acting so strange. This isn’t a Christian book, but the moral is that humans have to take better care of God’s creation – Christian kids should recognize the stewardship implications. People were dumping their garbage where bears could get it, which made for great shows for the tourists (“Come to the back of our inn and see the bears up close as they eat”) but which got the grizzlies dangerously familiar with people. It also harmed the bears physically, from the glass and trash they ingested along with the food scraps. There is some minor nonsensical environmentalism along with the stewardship message: kids are told they can protect wildlife by not buying single-serving bags of chips. It’s quite the leap to go from showing the danger of feeding bears our garbage to saying that we’re hurting them when we buy a big cookie wrapped in plastic. No, not if we throw the wrapper in the garbage. But this departure only amounts to a few sentences in the whole 150+ page book.
I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005 – Barry Tucker’s family tried to obey the mandatory evacuation order. But when all the roads leaving New Orleans were backed up for miles with wall-to-wall cars, and then his little sister got really sick in the car, they decided to turn back. They were going to tough it out at home, like they had for many a storm before. The difference this time was that a levee – one of the huge walls holding the stormwater back – completely crumbled, and suddenly the city, and Barry’s street, were underwater. Even the attic wasn’t high enough! Things get more dramatic when Barry gets separated from his family, falling into the flowing water. Then his resourcefulness and bravery are on full display, as he not only saves himself but saves a dog that he used to be terrified of. There is a happy ending for all at the end when Barry reunites with his family. The history here isn’t as relevant to non-Americans, but this is a good story. One caution, or at least a point worth discussing with kids, would be the superhero character that Barry created with a friend, and how that fictional superhero serves as a source of hope for him and his sister. This is what unbelievers accuse Christians of doing – placing our hope in a fictional god just to make ourselves feel better. Here, Barry is actually doing so.
I Survived the Attacks of Sept. 11, 2011 – 11-year-old Lucas loves football, but football may not love Lucas. When his parents tell Lucas that his third concussion in two years means he has to stop playing, he skips school. He has to go talk to his Uncle Ben, the guy who got him interested in football in the first place. Both Uncle Benny and Lucas’s dad are New York firefighters, and Lucas is desperately hoping his uncle can get his dad to change his mind. But as he’s talking with his uncle, we see the first plane hit one of the city’s Twin Towers. Lucas has to stay behind as Uncle Benny and all the other firefighters head out to help. Author Lauren Tarshis initially considered having Uncle Benny be one of the victims but realized that would be too much for her young readers. So, all the main figures do make it out alive, but many of their friends don’t. I thought this would be a heavy book for my kids. It wasn’t, or at least not any more so than the others. I get it now – I lived through this and they didn’t. It’s just more history for them.

DON’T BOTHER

I wasn’t impressed with I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916, where the new kid in town pranks his friends by spreading ketchup on the dock only to see a real shark swim up the river. Of course, now no one will believe him, and he ends up paying for his prank with a piece of his calf the shark bites off. That makes this unnecessarily grim. After all, why do kids need to learn about this particular shark attack? They can learn not to cry wolf without the panel-by-panel depiction of a shark attack. To be clear, it isn’t super gory, but as there is no particular reason to get it, I’d argue there’s also no particular reason to overlook any gore.

I Survived the American Revolution 1776 struck me as too simplistic, with the main Loyalist shown as a bully and vicious slave-owner, while the boy revolutionary is brave and anti-slavery. Maybe its my Canadian roots showing, but, really? Additionally, the Lord’s Name is taken in vain once.

Greek gods come up predictably in I Survived the Destruction Of Pompeii. AD 79, but another god makes a surprise appearance: Science. The young narrator is told by his father, “It’s natural for people to blame the gods for things they don’t understand. But Science always holds the answer.” Always? While our kids will see through the greek gods, they may not be discerning enough to see how this accusation is made against Christians today – that our faith is simply what we turn to when we don’t have better explanations, but Science always provide the real answers. But this ignores that Science, when elevated to that kind of god-life status, doesn’t measure up. Its ever changing, insufficient, and ideologically-blinded answers pale in comparison to God’s unchanging, established Word.

So, a few to give a miss, but overall, quite a series. I’m looking forward to the eleventh book, scheduled for Summer 2025, called I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919.

Book Reviews, Graphic novels, RP App

Tagged: American history, Book Review, educational fiction, graphic novel, historical fiction, history, Holocaust, teen non-fiction, World War II

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Book Reviews, Graphic novels

Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood

by Nathan Hale 128 pages, 2014 A few decades ago a cartoonist decided to tell the story of the Jewish Holocaust in World War II via an animal metaphor. He made the Jews mice, and the Germans cats, the good folk dogs and the collaborators were pigs. It was a dark story, of course, but the use of the animals made it slightly less gritty, and thus more bearable. In Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood, author Nathan Hale has done something similar for World War I. Each nation is assigned an animal: the Germans are eagles, the English are bulldogs, the Belgians are lions, the Ottomans are otters, the Russians bears and the Americans get stuck being bunnies, because eagle has already been taken. Hale does a good job of laying out the facts, and detailing the slaughter that amounted in the millions, but also lightening things up with doses of humor whenever he can. I knew the basic facts of World War I already, but learned a lot from this overview. Of course a comic, particularly one presented in metaphor form, shouldn't be regarded as an authoritative source, but it does provide a useful overview. Now if I want to find out more, I've now learned enough to know what I might want to read more about. This book is one of in a series of "Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales" referencing both the author Nathan Hale, and the more famous American spy Nathan Hale who lived 250 years ago, and who appears in this series as the narrator. I hope to review the series at one point, as it has both high and low points. Hale used much more discretion in Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood, though there are a couple cautions to share here too: this is a historic account that details the death of millions, so even though it is in animal/comic form parts of it would be too much for the very young. I'm not talking about gore - there isn't any - but rather the story itself. Also a language advisory: a couple of "good heavens"s pop up, a "holy moley" and in one instances a character says, "ye gods" (page 73). I'd recommend this for children 12 and up, though some kids might be able to handle it as young as 10. OTHERS RECOMMENDED Donner Dinner Party 128 pages, 2013 The general gist of this tale is well known: the Donner party was a caravan of settlers heading to California that took an ill-advised short-cut and to survive the winter had to eat their dead. So this might not seem the sort of story that is well suited for a graphic novel account: too dark and disturbing. There is certainly something to that, but author Nathan Hale does ensure this is, at most, a PG-rated account - there is no gore of any sort, save one panel in which a man is stabbed and that is as muted as a stabbing can be. I enjoyed learning the true (or mostly true - the author fills in the gaps with his imagination) story behind the popular folk tale. But, unlike the previous story on World War I, there is no pressing reason to read this graphic novel. There is no real lesson to be learned (other than, as one survivor put it, "Don't take no cut-offs, and get where you're going as fast as you can") and the story of the Donner party has had no real impact on our culture or our world. So if you don't know much about it, well, you can still get by. But readers will get an idea of just how brave (and perhaps crazy) these first settlers were, to travel for months on end through wilderness and Indian lands and without even really knowing what they were in for. So my overall recommendation would be to get Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood before you get this one. But while there is no pressing reason to get this one, there are no real reasons not to, and it is an interesting slice of American history well and quite delicately told. You can get a copy from Amazon.com by clicking here. Big, bad, Ironclad 128 pages, 2012 About the American civil war, and how the two sides each had, for the first time, ironclad ships (that cannonballs would just bounce right off of) fighting each other. If you only have a passing familiarity with the US civil war you might not know that it wasn't just a land-based battle. One lesser-known aspect, investigated in this graphic novel, is the attempt by the North to use a naval blockade to stop the South from exporting their cotton. To break the blockade the South built a ship with an iron hull, a hull so strong that cannon balls would bounce off of it. When the Merrimack was put out to sea it was every bit as devastating as it's creators had hoped, and was hampered only by an underpowered engine. The North had heard rumors about the Merrimack long before she was completed and had gotten to work on their own ironclad ship. So not too long after the Merrimack set sail, the North's response, the Monitor was completed. This is a fascinating tale, with the whole civil war as a backdrop. While the information is well researched, the book itself is drawn in a very comical style, with one character, Gustavus Fox, actually presented as a uniform-wearing fox. So this is great for someone trying to get a good overview of events – at 128 pages it has the size to give us much more than a glimpse – but it wouldn't be the sort of book that would be cited in the bibliography of any paper. NOT RECOMMENDED One Dead Spy This is the first book in the series, and American spy Nathan Hale's first story is his own – when he first decided to become a soldier, his part in booting the British out of Boston, the story of the supply ship he seized - which coincides with the story of the early part of the American Revolution. That's the real thrust of the book, to give readers a look at how the war started. But at just 128 pages there simply isn't room for the whole story, so this tale ends with the end of Nathan Hale. Or rather, it ends with him on the gallows, telling stories to the Hangman and his British guard. It is the first story, but finds it's place here at the bottom because, unfortunately, the author includes an exact quote from a British General that begins with the general taking God's name in vain (page 57). That wasn't necessary. Alamo All-Stars 128 pages, 2016 "Remember that Alamo!" - many of us have heard this rallying cry, but don't know what it is we're supposed to remember. This is the story of the stand that a 200 (or so) Texans took against a Mexican army many times that size in 1836. The Texans took their stand in a makeshift fort at the Alamo mission, and after a 13 day siege the Mexicans wiped the smaller Texan force out, leaving only a few women and slaves alive to spread the story in the hopes it would break down resistance to Mexican rule. It did the opposite - among those killed were the infamous Jim Bowie and famous Davy Crockett, and their deaths helped spark a revolution which saw the Mexicans defeated and Texas declaring its independence (10 years later Texas joined the United States). Hale does another fine job here of teaching history while keeping things very interesting, but in two instances (page 99 and 103) he again depicts God's name being taken in vain, both involving historical quotes. The Underground Abductor 128 pages, 2015 This would best be described as a biography of Harriet Tubman, an American slave who helped dozens and eventually hundreds of other slaves flee to freedom. She worked with many others, who would shelter the slaves as they went from one stop to the next in their journey from the slave-holding southern states to the freedom found that was to be found in Canada. These escape routes that slaves would take, traveling from safe house to safe house, came to be known as the Underground Railroad...even though very few trains were involved in their transport, and none of it was really underground (though a few secret cellars were involved). This is a fascinating story, but there is some strange mysticism included: Harriet Tubman, after recovering from a severe head injury, would claim to get visions from God. But more troubling is that this book, like One Dead Spy takes the Lord's name in vain. In this book it happens at least a couple times, which is why it, also, is near the bottom of this list. Blades of Freedom 128 pages / 2020 This is a grim history of Haiti presents Christianity as just another religion, akin to Voodoo. It has blood aplenty, and a naked butt. And it also repeatedly takes God's name in vain....

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Trivan and ITB: Now Hiring!

By: Jon Dykstra

Published November 4, 2023